'Babylonian Flats' in Victorian and Edwardian London
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the london journal, Vol. 33 No. 3, November 2008, 233–247 ‘Babylonian Flats’ in Victorian and Edwardian London Richard Dennis University College London, UK The fi rst half of this paper examines the controversy associated with the building of Queen Anne’s Mansions, London’s fi rst high-rise fl ats, erected between 1873 and 1890, and a catalyst for the introduction of height restric- tions in the London Building Acts of 1890 and 1894. Subsequent sections consider the building’s place in the imagination of Londoners, the marketing of the mansions, which emphasised their height and novelty, and the characteristics of residents, especially as recorded in the 1901 census. The paper concludes by positioning Queen Anne’s Mansions in wider debates about living in fl ats and the acceptability of high-rise buildings in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century London. In Howards End (1910), E.M. Forster discusses the plight of the Schlegel sisters whose London town house is fi rst overshadowed by neighbouring ‘Wickham Mansions’ and then threatened with redevelopment to make way for ‘Babylonian fl ats’. Forster uses the term ‘Babylonian’ to signify not only the scale and spectacular form of luxury fl ats in Edwardian London but also the oppression and exploitation associated with processes of redevelopment, contrary to the interests of longstanding residents such as the Schlegels.1 Mansion fl ats appeared Babylonian in scale, but also ‘Babel-like’ in gathering hundreds of people of different ages, experiences and origins under one roof. This was particularly true of tall blocks of fl ats that could also be compared physically to the biblical Tower of Babel. Most mansion fl ats in Victorian London were fi ve or six storeys in height and formed semi-continuous street frontages — for example, along Victoria Street — but one building stood out as a ‘tower’ rather than a ‘block’: Queen Anne’s Mansions. The planning controversies surrounding its construction and subsequent extension, the ways in which it was marketed and the character of its mobile, cosmopolitan population all have resonances with more recent debates about high-rise building and loft-living in contemporary London. Planning perspectives The fi rst stage of Queen Anne’s Mansions, a 10-storey, 116-feet high building, situated between Victoria Street and St James’s Park, dates from 1873–5 (Figure 1). © The London Journal Trust 2008 DOI 10.1179/174963208X347709 234 RICHARD DENNIS fi gure 1 Map to show Queen Anne’s Mansions and nearby mansion fl ats, c.1890 A second stage in 1877 climbed an additional storey to 130 feet and, in part, to 12 storeys, at least 141 feet, and a much larger extension, in 1888–90, reached 160 feet. The developer and initial owner, Henry Hankey, a merchant and City banker, was evidently expert in testing the borders of legality in his business operations. For example, in 1872 he had presented a petition designed to expedite the winding-up of the failed International Contract Company of which he had been a director, but in the course of the hearing it emerged that Hankey had himself purchased several of the outstanding claims on the company and stood to benefi t personally if the petition succeeded: he would pay £20,000 as debtor-director, but receive £35,000 as creditor.2 Initially, Hankey’s building encountered few problems. Under the 1855 Building Act, new buildings exceeding 100 feet in height required consent from the Metro- politan Board of Works (MBW), but this was purely a safety regulation: the Board had to be satisfi ed that the walls of tall buildings were suffi ciently thick to support their weight. Hankey’s earliest application to feature in the Board’s fi les was not made until November 1875, by which time the fi rst part of the building was almost fi nished; so it appears that Hankey did not seek (and receive) the Board’s approval until his building was already 100 feet high.3 Meanwhile, a building labourer was killed by falling timber while working the ‘perpetual lift’ during gale-force winds and an unfi nished observatory on the roof of Hankey’s own private residence adjacent to the fl ats was destroyed by fi re, events which foreshadowed fears about safety that concerned the mansions’ neighbours over subsequent decades.4 In February 1877, Hankey applied again to the MBW, seeking permission for a South Wing, extending along York Street (now Petty France). This block, too, must ‘BABYLONIAN FLATS’ IN VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN LONDON 235 have been well advanced by the time Hankey sought permission, for he had alluded to it in his original application fi fteen months earlier, arguing that the extension would provide ‘an additional exit in case of fi re’. The MBW Architect’s Offi ce was getting worried about such retrospective applications, writing to the Westminster District Surveyor to suggest that such questions should be resolved ‘before the walls are built’. Nevertheless, Hankey was granted permission to construct the wing, subject only to the works being executed to the District Surveyor’s satisfaction.5 Three months later, Hankey made yet another retrospective application, confessing that his building was even higher than intended and proposing to use concrete fi reproof doors instead of the ‘old fashioned double iron doors’ prescribed by the Building Act. Previously, Hankey had been his own architect, but to supervise the fl ats’ completion, he recruited John Whichcord, described by George Vulliamy, the MBW’s Superintending Architect, as ‘an architect of eminence and a District Surveyor’. Presumably on the grounds that Whichcord could be trusted, Vulliamy recommended approval of what would now be a 148-feet-high, 12-storey building. However, the Board was not so easily impressed and declined to grant approval, despite Hankey’s increasingly anxious pleas: that his building was now far stronger than necessary; and that he had acquired land around the mansions to ensure nobody could claim loss of light or air and so that surrounding streets could be widened.6 Fire was a constant source of anxiety, especially in the wake of dramatic confl a- grations in Thamesside warehouses — most famously, the Tooley Street fi re in 1861, but of more immediate relevance a fi re at Brook’s Wharf, Queenhithe, in June 1876, when it was apparent that ‘the fi re engines could only send the water up to the fi fth storey’ of a seven-storey building.7 Giving evidence to the Select Committee on the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in May 1877, the Brigade’s chief, Captain Shaw, agreed that his appliances would be unable to ‘throw a jet of water to the top of Queen Anne’s Mansions’ and that ‘that building would be entirely destroyed if it depended upon a jet being thrown from the ground level to the top storeys’.8 Vulliamy’s own evidence to the Select Committee confi rmed that none of Captain Shaw’s appliances would reach the 100-feet height to which buildings such as a new hotel on Northum- berland Avenue were currently being erected. In the case of public buildings, such as theatres and music-halls, he would certainly take Captain Shaw’s advice before grant- ing licences, yet he did not propose extending the powers of the MBW to require licensing of ‘private buildings’. And he was not pressed on whether blocks like Queen Anne’s Mansions should be treated as sets of ‘private’ dwellings or as ‘public’ buildings.9 Whichcord’s plans substituted additional brick-walled storeys in place of a mansard roof, perhaps anticipating the critique levelled by ‘M’ in Building News in August 1877. Among numerous criticisms of plans for the ‘Mansions in the Skies’, ‘M’ noted that: If I wanted to build a three-story house, and should seek to erect from ground level a front thereto of wood covered with slate, just a shade out of the perpendicular so as to “cheat the devil,” I should be stopped and told the Act did not allow it. But if my proceedings are bad at ground level, would they be less so if these stories are lifted a hundred feet in the air, being called a roof? Are not, in the latter case, the conditions a thousand times worse?10 236 RICHARD DENNIS Three times Hankey submitted his plans, and three times the MBW rejected them, encouraging Edward Drury, the District Surveyor, to issue no fewer than six summonses for violations of the Building Act. In a hearing in Westminster Magis- trates’ Court, Drury admitted that ‘the work was perfectly safe and strong, and there was no public inconvenience. There would be no complaint of the exclusion of light and air.’ However, the building had been raised at least 11 feet higher than agreed, so ‘one story must come off’. Moreover, passages, fl oors and staircases were not fi reproof, and openings in party walls would facilitate the spread of fi re. The magis- trate, reluctant to order demolition, adjourned the case, and when proceedings resumed several weeks later, Drury withdrew his summons. Hankey assured every- body that he would abide by the safety regulations, and was allowed his extra 11 feet, effectively creating a 12-storey tower.11 The Builder described the mansions as ‘monster blocks of dwellings’ and ‘Babel- like structures’. To guard against fi re, rooftop tanks, New York-style, contained 40,000 gallons of water, fed by a six-inch main from the Chelsea Waterworks, so that ‘the entire building could be drowned . in a few minutes’, and suffi cient to power several hydraulic lifts and provide a high-pressure domestic supply.